What in most election years is the proverbial “October Surprise” may already be starting right now, in late March.  Or at least the set-up for it.

Many thanks to Dan Bongino for bringing up the “seeds” of this potential hoax right away, so we can “nip it in the bud” before it “takes root.”  (Can’t resist the garden analogy because this is happening so early in the spring.  If it were just the classic October Surprise, perhaps we’d be talking about vote “harvesting,” haha.)  We were able to quickly squelch that inane “bloodbath” hoax the media tried to push when it was obvious that Trump was speaking figuratively --- and correctly --- about the auto industry.  Let’s see if we can do the same with this one.  It’s just as ridiculous.

This one, like the Benghazi “it-started-with-a-video” hoax, is opening with something said by Susan Rice, U.N. ambassador and national security adviser during the Obama years and until May of last year still a fixture at the White House as (oddly) director of the Domestic Policy Counsel.  Recall that Rice was trotted out for five different Sunday talk shows after the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, --- which killed four Americans, including our ambassador --- to promote the fiction that this was a sudden, unplanned uprising, spurred by an anti-Muslim video.  Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly lied about this, too.

And now Rice is at it again.

Last week, she went on MSNBC (where else?) to promote a new idea about Trump, and, yes, this one involves Russia, too, as almost all the tactics in the Democrat playbook seem to do.  It also ties in the current financial crisis that has been created for Trump through Letitia James’ bogus real estate fraud case against him in New York, which essentially is an attempt to steal his money and property.

The story, as Rice tells it, is that Trump is so in need of money right now, he’s going to have to make some kind of deal with Russia or China.  In her words, “the problem and pattern here is that we have somebody who clearly doesn’t put the interest of the United States ahead of his own personal interests. That’s the fundamental problem.  And when that is the case, the United States is deeply vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by our adversaries, with whom he seems to be most comfortable.  (Note: This woman worked for JOE BIDEN!) So this is really something that people need to be mindful of.  He is telling us exactly what he intends to do.  And what he intends to do is absolutely antithetical to the national security interests of the United States, and fundamentally dangerous.”

What a steaming load of elephant manure this is.

You know, if President Trump didn’t put the interest of the United States ahead of his own personal interests, he would have gotten out of politics as soon as he could.  He would never have run for another term --- look at what they’re doing to him.  As he himself has said, he could have had a wonderful life at Mar-A-Lago, completely outside of politics, with the success he’s had.  No one would be trying to destroy him like this, take everything he has and put him in prison for the rest of his life.  The idea that he’s running for President again because he cares only about himself is preposterous.

But they obviously don’t care --- they’ll say anything.  Recall that at the 2016 DNC convention, if you managed to sit through that, the statement they repeated over and over about the Republican candidate was that “Donald Trump has never done anything for anyone except himself, in his entire life.”  Again, preposterous.

“Think about it,” Bongino said of this new scheme in his Friday podcast.  “What a disgusting, evil, but elegant scam on their part.  Steal Donald Trump’s money, take all his buildings, and then as he’s running for office, claim he’s a national security risk because he could be bribed by Russia.”

People who could do this “don’t have an ounce of human dignity at all,” he said.  (Stop the presses!)

Fortunately, they started talking about this so early that we ought to be able to stop it well before the election.   And one thing to remember is with this kind of garbage being thrown at our candidate, it’s not the time to “take the high road,” by, for example, purging the House of legislators like George Santos.  Republicans have got to focus on the fight that will consume most of the rest of this year.

Sure, Democrats are enjoying this attempt to bankrupt Trump because they hate him.  But they’re also doing it for a reason, to set up their 2024 election surprise.  Bongino anticipates that the Democrats, as the election approaches, will elaborate on this scenario they’re just starting to create, perhaps with something like, “Donald Trump doesn’t want to fund the Ukraine war because Vladimir Putin --- there’s a lucrative deal for him and Russia, and he’s gonna get a bunch of money ‘cause he’s bankrupt.”  Trump won’t be fit to be President, they’ll say, because he’s a national security risk.

(Note:  this is consistent with the other story we brought you about Democrats possibly taking over Congress before the election, or at least before certification.  If Trump wins the election, a Democrat Congress might conceivably use this “national security” pretext to deny certification to him.)

We know what Susan Rice is there to do.  As Bongino said, “Whenever they need someone to do a hatchet job, make something up, fabricate a fairy tale, destroy someone’s life and reputation and their family, they use Susan Rice.”  Just seeing MSNBC cut to her on a talk show is enough to let us know what’s about to happen.

Bongino recommended fighting back on social media against what Susan Rice said, just as we did before to destroy the “bloodbath” hoax.  “Destroy their narrative and make fun of them,” he said.  So, come on, BABYLON BEE, we’re counting on you!  Brave standup comedians, on with the ridicule.  And everybody else, say what you think of this.  Speak up about what terrible people these are and what a ridiculous idea this is.  You know we’ll do our part --- as you can see, we’re starting today. 

Here’s Bongino’s podcast; he gets to the Susan Rice story about 11 minutes in.

https://bongino.com/ep-2213-the-2024-election-surprise-is-already-here

We did some looking to see what Rice is doing professionally these days, and whatever it is, it seems to be behind the scenes.  At the time she left the Biden White House, she had no stated plans.  According to Wikipedia, she’s currently on the board of Netflix (great) and is a member of an elite liberal think-tank, the Aspen Strategy Group.

 The Aspen Strategy Group...we thought that name sounded familiar.  What was it that brought our attention to the Aspen Strategy Group before now?  Oh, yes, NOW we remember.  Now it all makes sense...

https://nypost.com/2022/12/19/what-is-mysterious-aspen-institute-and-why-did-it-hold-hunter-biden-exercise/

The Aspen Institute, as reported in the “Twitter Files” (though we’d covered it long before), sponsored an 11-day “tabletop exercise” intended to influence coverage of the material on Hunter’s laptop, in October 2020, in advance of Miranda Devine’s blockbuster story (an “October surprise” in its own right).  As told by Michael Shellenberger, the event was organized by Vivian Schiller, a former top media executive for the usual suspects:  NPR, Twitter, THE NEW YORK TIMES, and NBC NEWS.  The FBI knew the laptop story was coming out, and this was a “pre-bunk” designed to prepare the media to accept their lie --- I mean “conclusion” --- that the laptop was Russian disinformation.  They did this even though they’d known since November 2019 that the laptop was real.

One more reason to anticipate a coordinated lie whenever Susan Rice makes an appearance.

RELATED:  If we’re going to talk about threats to national security, how is President Biden NOT one when he and his family are receiving money from China, Russia and Ukraine, the fact of which is now established.  Susan Rice has some nerve, talking about Trump as a potential national security threat when Biden actually IS compromised and has been for years through his family’s high-dollar influence-peddling.

(By the way, the above is what author and trained hypnotist/persuader Scott Adams would call “a linguistic kill shot.”  There’s no comeback.)

One has to wonder if the Aspen “Strategy” Group realizes how easily this new anti-Trump narrative can and will be dismantled.  They should just be embarrassed.  They’re supposed to be a THINK-tank, but what are they thinking?  Probably they think they’re just so smart that everybody else is really stupid.  Well, except for their friends in the media, whom they are counting on.

Roger Kimball has a piece at AMERICAN GREATNESS that touches on the real threat posed by Biden, in the context of reviewing Tony Bobulinski’s testimony from last week.  When money is paid, favors are owed.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/24/bobulinskis-testimony-unraveling-allegations-of-biden-family-influence-peddling/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=act_eng&seyid=126021

MORE RELATED READING:  David Masci, editor of DISCOURSE, writes of the dangers to the country of the Democrats’ dependence on a “silver bullet” to take out Trump.  Though we strongly disagree when he says Trump’s belief that the election was stolen is “ridiculous,” there are great observations here.  Example:

“While true believers on the left and right are willing to accept the most absurd things, the great mass in the middle—the same folks who decide elections—is much more circumspect about what they see and hear in the political space. In this case, many if not most probably understand that the Democrats are literally throwing everything they have at Trump and hoping that something hits with enough force to knock him down. If this were being done as part of the messaging war that goes on during every campaign, nothing would be amiss. But when you use and abuse the powers of law enforcement and the courts (as has been done over and over again), people begin to wonder who the real threat to democracy is.”

And this, his conclusion: “The rule of law, which has undergirded so much of our nation’s success, is now being perverted for base political gain. We are now heading toward a political landscape in which many national candidates will face criminal indictments and most verdicts for or against them will be mistrusted by a large segment of the populace. The upcoming volley of silver bullets may miss Trump, but they will likely strike at the heart of America’s legal and constitutional order.”

One question for Masci:  You’ve seen what these diabolical people are capable of.  Do you actually think they’d hesitate to steal an election from Trump, in 2020 or 2024?

https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/the-dangerous-allure-of-the-silver